


Til Death

by vanillafluffy



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Character Turned Into a Ghost, F/M, Haunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 12:39:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12582100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: The prompt was " Edith Cushing/Thomas Sharpe, death didn't put an end to their relationship"





	Til Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).



The wording of the marriage vows makes it clear: _Til death do us part_ , and Thomas Sharpe is unquestionably dead. Now Edith is free to follow her heart, to embrace her childhood friend as a woman, moreover a woman of substance who no longer needs to worry about what people will think. She marries Alan without a qualm, returning to the safe, comfortable haven of Buffalo. 

Her hometown is almost as she remembers it…save that now she lives in Alan’s tidy pied-a-terre, his family becomes hers (This is not a benefit, but it is inevitable.), and her father no longer occupies his office in the firm he helped build. There is a new managing partner, and the name of the firm has changed.

Fair enough--she’s changed too, in many ways. Writing is no longer an amusing diversion, it is a burning need, and the ghosts in her tales are no mere metaphors. She is at her desk one afternoon, penning a story of black moths spinning their cocoon around an unwary sleeper, when she glances up to see her first husband gazing down at her. A drop of ink forms a blot on the page as her hand trembles. She didn’t expect to see him here, so far from his ancestral hall.

“Hello, my darling,” he says softly, lips curving in a familiar smile.

Edith smiles back. Even after the malevolent specters she’s encountered, her late husband’s shade provokes no terrors. Thomas was always kind to her. Then her breath catches and she looks about wildly. “Is _she_ here?”

“No. She is…elsewhere. She won’t bother you.” He’s studying here, eyes tender. “You’re looking well. Marriage seems to agree with you.”

A flurry of responses come to mind: “So does not being poisoned by my sister-in-law.”---“I know I’m safe here, which is more than I could say last time.” And most heartfelt, “I would have been your wife if only you’d let me in!” But he had, hadn’t he? It just hadn’t been enough to overcome the indomitable Lucille Sharpe. And now death has parted them, or has it?

“It’s good to see you, too,” she says at last. “Everything happened so suddenly at the end…I never had the opportunity to say thank you.”

“Don’t! Don’t thank me!” he says with some vehemence. “I was an unconcionable coward, and I allowed Lucille to do terrible things on my behalf. But…I couldn’t hurt her. And I couldn’t hurt you.” His voice is mournful and tears glisten in his pale eyes.

“In the end, you saved me,” Edith reminds him.

“I suppose that’s the important thing. He’s a lucky man, that McMichael.” Thomas looks distracted for a moment. “I’ll be seeing you, sweetheart.” Then he’s gone before she can protest.

The door to her study opens, and Alan strides in, presenting her with a striped bag from the candy shop near his office and kissing her cheek. “How is my fair bride this afternoon?”

Edith returns the kiss and feeds him one of the chocolate creams from the bag. She banters with him, as if she’s spent a perfectly ordinary afternoon writing and hasn’t been chatting up her deceased first husband. Seeing ghosts is nothing new, really--not for her--and thankfully this was a peaceful discourse. Even if death hasn’t entirely parted her from Thomas, she thinks with a wry smile, it would be nigh impossible to prove bigamy.

..


End file.
